14 September 2022

Advisory Committee for Public Lending Right 

PLR are pleased to announce the following appointments to the Advisory Committee

New Chair:

The British Library has appointed Daniel Hahn to be Chair of the Public Lending Right (PLR) Advisory Committee for the next three years. He took over this role in June 2022 after the current Chair Tom Holland stepped down on completion of his term of office.

 Daniel is an award-winning translator of adult and children’s books, an author and an editor of major works including The Oxford Guide to Literary Britain and Ireland and The Oxford Guide to Children’s Literature. He is a former chair of the Society of Authors, as well as national programme director of the British Centre for Literary Translation.

Daniel has long been an active supporter of a number of literary organisations including English PEN, The Children's Bookshow and Modern Poetry in Translation. He has also long been an active campaigner for PLR. His comments can be found in the following case study on our website. Daniel was honoured with an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2020.

Roly Keating, Chief Executive of the British Library commented:

“I’m delighted that Daniel has agreed to be the new Chair of the PLR Advisory Committee. He’s a tireless and generous supporter of books, literature and authorship in all its forms, and it’s wonderful to be working with him as PLR continues to grow and develop over the years ahead. All of us at the Library are also deeply grateful to Tom Holland for his successful term as Chair since October 2015.”

New member:

Vaseem Khan was appointed to the Public Lending Right Advisory Committee on 1 September 2022 as a representative of the Society of Authors. Vaseem Kahn is the award winning author of two crime series set in India, the Baby Ganesh Agency series set in modern Mumbai and the Malabar House historical crime novels set in 1950s Bombay.  His awards include CWA Sapere Books Historical Dagger, a Private Eye Writers of America (PWA) Shamus Award, and the Eastern Eye ACTA (Arts, Culture, Theatre Award) for Literature. Vaseem Khan’s appointment is for three years.

4 April 2022

Advisory Committee for Public Lending Right – Vacancy for Chair

The British Library Advisory Committee for Public Lending Right was established to provide expert advice to the Library on the operation of the UK PLR Scheme and to represent the views of PLR stakeholders. The Committee is made up of a Chair and six members: two members representing registered authors, two representing the public library community and two from the wider PLR constituency (book trade, writing, publishing, authors’ agents, copyright and intellectual property etc).

We are currently seeking applicants for a Chair. The deadline for applications is 29 April 2022.

Further information on the Committee can be found here.

If you are interested in this role please email a brief resume to headofplr@bl.uk

18 February 2022

UK PLR annual payments

PLR payments to UK accounts have now been made, please allow 3-5 working days for these to reach your account.

December 2021 

UK PLR annual statements

This year’s Rate Per Loan for the Irish PLR Scheme is 11.26 pence.

UK PLR statements are now available to view - You will have been sent a link to your statement if you have an online account or an offline account with an email address.

Online statements are provided regardless of whether there is a payment due. If you do not have an online account you will receive a paper statement. Please note that paper statements are only sent to those who are due to receive a payment (i.e. your registered titles earn £1 or more).

November 2021 

Irish PLR annual statements

This year’s Rate Per Loan for the Irish PLR Scheme is 11.29 cent.

Irish PLR statements are now available to view - You will have been sent a link to your statement if you have an online account or an offline account with an email address.

Online statements are provided regardless of whether there is a payment due. If you do not have an online account you will receive a paper statement. Please note that paper statements are only sent to those who are due to receive a payment (i.e. your registered titles earn €2 or more).

1 July 2021

Extension of PLR to include remote loans of ebooks and eaudio-books from public libraries in Northern Ireland

The British Library is pleased to announce that a Statutory Instrument comes into force, today, 1 July 2021 extending PLR to include remote loans of ebooks and eaudio-books from public libraries in Northern Ireland. Contributors to titles in these formats loaned from public libraries in Northern Ireland will be eligible for PLR payments for the first time. This legislative change brings the loans of ebooks and eaudio-books from these libraries into line with loans from public libraries in the rest of the UK.

Tom Holland, Chair of the PLR Advisory Committee, said of the changes: “This additional legislation to include PLR on these loans from public libraries in Northern Ireland will be hugely to the benefit of authors, who are fully aware that printed books these days are not the only way of reaching their readers." He added: “The changes in library borrowing as a result of Covid has had a significant impact on loans of ebooks and eaudio-books. The inclusion of their loans from Northern Ireland public libraries will be of great advantage to all authors and other contributors to these titles.”   

The change comes into effect from 1 July 2021, with data on ebook and eaudio book loans being collected from this date and the first payments being made in February 2023.

Further information on the registration of non-print material can be found on the PLR website.

15 January 2021

UK PLR annual payments

PLR payments to UK accounts have now been made and those to overseas accounts will be made on Monday 18th Jan. Please allow 3-5 working days for these to reach your account.

6 January 2021

UK PLR annual statements and payments

We're very pleased to announce that PLR statements are now available online. For anyone waiting for a postal statement these will be despatched later this week. Please make any amendments asap.

.